The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium #1)

The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (Millennium #1) Page 55

An almost identical copy of Cecilia Vanger opened the door, her expression politely questioning.

"Hi, Anita. My name is Mikael Blomkvist. Henrik Vanger asked me to come and see you. I assume that you've heard the news about Martin."

Her expression changed from surprise to wariness. She knew exactly who Mikael Blomkvist was. But Henrik's name meant that she was forced to open the door. She showed Blomkvist into her living room. He noticed a signed lithograph by Anders Zorn over the fireplace. It was altogether a charming room.

"Forgive me for bothering you out of the blue, but I happened to be in St. Albans, and I tried to call you during the day."

"I understand. Please tell me what this is about?"

"Are you planning to be at the funeral?"

"No, as a matter of fact, I'm not. Martin and I weren't close, and anyway, I can't get away at the moment."

Anita Vanger had stayed away from Hedestad for thirty years. After her father moved back to Hedeby Island, she had hardly set foot there.

"I want to know what happened to Harriet Vanger, Anita. It's time for the truth."

"Harriet? I don't know what you mean."

Blomkvist smiled at her feigned surprise.

"You were Harriet's closest friend in the family. You were the one she turned to with her horrible story."

"I can't think what you're talking about," Anita said.

"Anita, you were in Harriet's room that day. I have photographic proof of it, in spite of what you said to Inspector Morell. In a few days I'm going to report to Henrik, and he'll take it from there. It would be better to tell me what happened."

Anita Vanger stood up.

"Get out of my house this minute."

Blomkvist got up.

"Sooner or later you're going to have to talk to me."

"I have nothing now, nor ever will have, anything to say to you."

"Martin is dead," Blomkvist said. "You never liked Martin. I think that you moved to London not only to avoid seeing your father but also so that you wouldn't have to see Martin. That means that you also knew about Martin, and the only one who could have told you was Harriet. The question is: what did you do with that knowledge?"

Anita Vanger slammed her front door in his face.

Salander smiled with satisfaction as she unfastened the microphone from under his shirt.

"She picked up the telephone about twenty seconds after she nearly took the door off its hinges," she said.

"The country code is Australia," Trinity said, putting down the earphones on the little desk in the van. "I need to check the area code." He switched on his laptop. "OK, she called the following number, which is a telephone in a town called Tennant Creek, north of Alice Springs in the Northern Territory. Do you want to hear the conversation?"

Blomkvist nodded. "What time is it in Australia right now?"

"About 5:00 in the morning." Trinity started the digital player and attached a speaker. Mikael counted eight rings before someone picked up the telephone. The conversation took place in English.

"Hi. It's me."

"Hmm, I know I'm a morning person but..."

"I thought of calling you yesterday... Martin is dead. He seems to have driven his car into a truck the day before yesterday."

Silence. Then what sounded like someone clearing their throat, but it might have been: "Good."

"But we have got a problem. A disgusting journalist that Henrik dug up from somewhere has just knocked on my door, here in St. Albans. He's asking questions about what happened in 1966. He knows something."

Again silence. Then a commanding voice.

"Anita. Put down the telephone right now. We can't have any contact for a while."

"But..."

"Write a letter. Tell me what's going on." Then the conversation was over.

"Sharp chick," Salander said.

They returned to their hotel just before 11:00. The front desk manager helped them to reserve seats on the next available flight to Australia. Soon they had reservations on a plane leaving at 7:05 the following evening, destination Melbourne, changing in Singapore.

This was Salander's first visit to London. They spent the morning walking from Covent Garden through Soho. They stopped to have a caffe latte on Old Compton Street. Around 3:00 they were back at the hotel to collect their luggage. While Blomkvist paid the bill, Salander turned on her mobile. She had a text message.

"Armansky says to call at once."

She used a telephone in the lobby. Blomkvist, who was standing a short distance away, noticed Salander turn to him with a frozen expression on her face. He was at her side at once.

"What is it?"

"My mother died. I have to go home."

Salander looked so unhappy that he put his arms around her. She pushed him away.

They sat in the hotel bar. When Blomkvist said that he would cancel the reservations to Australia and go back to Stockholm with her, she shook her head.

"No," she said. "We can't screw up the job now. You'll have to go by yourself."

They parted outside the hotel, each of them making for a different airport.

CHAPTER 26

Tuesday, July 15 - Thursday, July 17

Blomkvist flew from Melbourne to Alice Springs. After that he had to choose either to charter a plane or to rent a car for the remaining 250-mile trip north. He chose to go by car.

An unknown person with the biblical signature of Joshua, who was part of Plague's or possibly Trinity's mysterious international network, had left an envelope for him at the central information desk at Melbourne airport.

The number that Anita had called belonged to a place called Cochran Farm. It was a sheep station. An article pulled off the Internet gave a snapshot guide.

Australia: population of 18 million; sheep farmers, 53,000; approx. 120 million head of sheep. The export of wool approx. 3.5 billion dollars annually. Australia exports 700 million tons of mutton and lamb, plus skins for clothing. Combined meat and wool production one of the country's most important industries...

Cochran Farm, founded 1891 by Jeremy Cochran, Australia's fifth largest agricultural enterprise, approx 60,000 Merino sheep (wool considered especially fine). The station also raised cattle, pigs, and chickens. Cochran Farm had impressive annual exports to the U.S.A., Japan, China, and Europe.

The personal biographies were fascinating.

In 1972 Cochran Farm passed down from Raymond Cochran to Spencer Cochran, educ. Oxford. Spencer d. in 1994, and farm run by widow. Blomkvist found her in a blurry, low-resolution photograph downloaded from the Cochran Farm website. It showed a woman with short blonde hair, her face partially hidden, shearing a sheep.

According to Joshua's note, the couple had married in Italy in 1971.

Her name was Anita Cochran.

Blomkvist stopped overnight in a dried-up hole of a town with the hopeful name of Wannado. At the local pub he ate roast mutton and downed three pints along with some locals who all called him "mate."

Last thing before he went to bed he called Berger in New York.

"I'm sorry, Ricky, but I've been so busy that I haven't had time to call."

"What the hell is going on?" she exploded. "Christer called and told me that Martin Vanger had been killed in a car accident."

"It's a long story."

"And why don't you answer your telephone? I've been calling like crazy for two days."

"It doesn't work here."

"Where is here?"

"Right now I'm about one hundred twenty-five miles north of Alice Springs. In Australia, that is."

Mikael had rarely managed to surprise Berger. This time she was silent for nearly ten seconds.

"And what are you doing in Australia? If I might ask."

"I'm finishing up the job. I'll be back in a few days. I just called to tell you that my work for Henrik Vanger is almost done."

He arrived at Cochran Farm around noon the following day, to be told that Anita Cochran was at a sheep station near a place called Makawaka seventy-five miles farther west.

It was 4:00 in the afternoon by the time Mikael found his way there on dusty back roads. He stopped at a gate where some sheep ranchers were gathered around the hood of a Jeep having coffee. Blomkvist got out and explained that he was looking for Anita Cochran. They all turned towards a muscular young man, clearly the decision-maker of the group. He was bare chested and very brown except for the parts normally covered by his T-shirt. He was wearing a wide-brimmed hat.

"The boss is about eighteen miles off in that direction," he said, pointing with his thumb.

He cast a sceptical glance at Blomkvist's vehicle and said that it might not be such a good idea to go on in that Japanese toy car. Finally the tanned athlete said that he was heading that way and would drive Blomkvist in his Jeep. Blomkvist thanked him and took along his computer case.

The man introduced himself as Jeff and said that he was the "studs manager" at the station. Blomkvist asked him to explain what that meant. Jeff gave him a sidelong look and concluded that Blomkvist was not from these parts. He explained that a studs manager was rather the equivalent of a financial manager in a bank, although he administered sheep, and that a "station" was the Australian word for ranch.

They continued to converse as Jeff cheerfully steered the Jeep at about ten kilometres an hour down into a ravine with a 20 0  slope. Blomkvist thanked his lucky stars that he had not attempted the drive in his rental car. He asked what was down in the ravine and was told that it was the pasture land for 700 head of sheep.

"As I understand it, Cochran Farm is one of the bigger ranches."

"We're one of the largest in all of Australia," Jeff said with a certain pride in his voice. "We run about 9,000 sheep here in the Makawaka district, but we have stations in both New South Wales and Western Australia. We have 60,000 plus head."

They came out from the ravine into a hilly but gentler landscape. Blomkvist suddenly heard shots. He saw sheep cadavers, big bonfires, and a dozen ranch hands. Several men seemed to be carrying rifles. They were apparently slaughtering sheep.

Involuntarily, he thought of the biblical sacrificial lambs.

Then he saw a woman with short blonde hair wearing jeans and a red-and-white checked shirt. Jeff stopped a few yards away from her.

"Hi, Boss. We've got a tourist," he said.

Blomkvist got out of the Jeep and looked at her. She looked back with an inquisitive expression.

"Hi, Harriet. It's been a long time," he said in Swedish.

None of the men who worked for Anita Cochran understood what he said, but they all saw her reaction. She took a step back, looking shocked. The men saw her response, stopped their joking, and straightened up, ready to intervene against this odd stranger. Jeff's friendliness suddenly evaporated and he advanced toward Blomkvist.

Blomkvist was keenly aware how vulnerable he was. A word from Anita Cochran and he would be done for.

Then the moment passed. Harriet Vanger waved her hand in a peaceful gesture and the men moved back. She came over to Blomkvist and met his gaze. Her face was sweaty and dirty. Her blonde hair had darker roots. Her face was older and thinner, but she had grown into the beautiful woman that her confirmation portrait had promised.

"Have we met before?" she said.

"Yes, we have. I am Mikael Blomkvist. You were my babysitter one summer when I was three years old. You were twelve or thirteen at the time."

It took a few seconds for her puzzled expression to clear, and then he saw that she remembered. She looked surprised.

"What do you want?"

"Harriet, I'm not your enemy. I'm not here to make trouble for you. But I need to talk with you."

She turned to Jeff and told him to takeover, then signalled to Blomkvist to follow her. They walked a few hundred feet over to a group of white canvas tents in a grove of trees. She motioned him to a camp stool at a rickety table and poured water into a basin. She rinsed her face, dried it, and went inside the tent to change her shirt. She got two beers out of a cooler.

"So. Talk."

"Why are you shooting the sheep?"

"We have a contagious epidemic. Most of these sheep are probably healthy, but we can't risk it spreading. We're going to have to slaughter more than six hundred in the coming week. So I'm not in a very good mood."

Blomkvist said: "Your brother crashed his car into a truck a few days ago. He must have died instantaneously."

"I heard that."

"From Anita, who called you."

She scrutinised him for a long moment. Then she nodded. She knew that it was pointless to deny the fact.

"How did you find me?"

"We tapped Anita's telephone." Blomkvist did not think there was any reason to lie. "I saw your brother a few minutes before he died."

Harriet Vanger frowned. He met her gaze. Then he took off the ridiculous scarf he was wearing, turned down his collar, and showed her the stripe left from the noose. It was still red and inflamed, and he would probably always have a scar to remind him of Martin Vanger.

"Your brother had hung me from a hook, but by the grace of God my partner arrived in time to stop him killing me."

Harriet's eyes suddenly burned.

"I think you'd better tell me the story from the beginning."

It took more than an hour. He told her who he was and what he was working on. He described how he came to be given the assignment by Henrik Vanger. He explained how the police's investigation had come to a dead end, and he told her of Henrik's long investigation, and finally he told her how a photograph of her with friends in Jarnvagsgatan in Hedestad had led to the uncovering of the sorrows behind the mystery of her disappearance and its appalling sequel, which had ended with Martin Vanger's suicide.